Stealth Gameplay

How does one make stealth gameplay interesting in a Tabletop sense?

Bump for curiosity

Give Blades in the Dark a read.

Blades is a good system but it still doens't really have mechanics specifically for stalth beyond its skill checks system.

Stealth is a weird thing to apply to tabletop games as it only works when one assumes combat is something to be avoided, it also requires a variety of non-combat actions with good mechanical depth to be interesting. As such the best options are systems which use generic conflict systems, like A Dirty World or Dogs in the Vineyard, systems that use the full depth of the system for any kind of conflict, including stealth.

Every time the players fail a Stealth check, they tick off one box of the Stealth meter. Every failure pushes them closer to being discovered.

If your game has a dedicated sneaking skill/stat/whatever, you've already lost.
The way to make stealth interesting, as opposed to skillchecks left, right and center, is to have the players map out the area, the guards and potential worries, craft a plan, get the gear, bribe what needs to be bribed, distract what needs to be distracted and kill what cannot be bribed, distracted or duped, put the getaway horse/car/charmed dragon etc in the place where no one would suspect it and manage to get out of town before someone rats them out.
Actual stealth checks should be reserved for ambushes and avoiding notice when someone pops up in the wrong place at the wrong time.

That's still just rolling stealth.

Dogs' system could work actually, or something like it. "How much are you willing to risk?" or "Which risk will you take?" should be the crux of stealth gameplay.

In RPG's? Honestly no idea. No game really handles stealth well, and I'm not even sure what a really good RPG stealth system would look like. It would take someone with a really strong design idea to make it work, IMO.

Board Games have nailed it, oddly enough, with the various hidden movement board games on the market with really good mechanics for unseen action. Specter Ops, Fury of Dracula, Letters from Whitechapel, and Escape from the Aliens in Outer Space to name a few. And Captain Sonar of course, a fascinating team vs team cooperative hidden movement game.

I've been fiddling around with stealth as, functionally, a different kind of combat, with a "Hide Pool" or something equally silly that gets damaged or can be spent to get things done. I like it, it's simple and easy to graft into other things, but it might be too...*mechanical*, I guess.

this is actually a good idea. I might use it.

Break down Stealth into component parts.

Create a detailed map.

Make it less about the actual moment of sneaking and more about legwork beforehand; the players should succeed and fail on the strength of their plan and the amount of information they gathered beforehand, not on whether or not they succeed a stealth roll.

Having a high stealth should give them more flexibility/leeway to do risky things, or give them some breathing room if they fuck up (i.e. they missed the fact that the guards change shift at a certain time and thus have to stray from their normal patrol to go back to HQ. A successful stealth check might prevent the whole operation from getting blown right then and there by if they run into guards unexpectedly) but in general you should be more focused on how they prepare for the whole situation

First, define what you want stealth to be. A system where you have to case a joint as catburglars is different from a system where you just want one guy to sneak into a tower is different from a system where you need to hide from Pyramid Head.

The simplest way to do all of these things would be to have a core mechanic that can handle the depth you want to go down to. If the end all of stealth is "Rogue gets into position to backstab," you just need a simple opposed test. If you want MGS sneaking missions, have a stealth check create a pool of stealthiness for an area that depletes when doing stuff that would get you caught. If the whole crew getting into a place sneaky like is the game, then you need multiple ways for each player to contribute to sneaking: scouting, fast talking, playing lookout, breaking and entering, extraction, etc.

At the end of the day, remember this: if stealth is something everyone needs to do, make sure everyone can do it. If stealth is something only one person needs to do, make sure it resolves quickly enough that they don't hold up the game.

This.

>blades in the dark
>stealth clocks
>have fun

>a weird thing to apply to tabletop games as it only works when one assumes combat is
naaah, pathfinder is roll stealth or be seen. In blades rolling bad on stealth doesnt mean you are seen, it means you make no progress and or you put yourself in a tougher spot to get out of. There is a lot of flexibility to the system if you can play the narrative,..

>stealth clocks
God, that sounds so fucking stupid.
>blades in the dark
>have fun
lmao.

Like these. Combine this with levels of 'alert' depending on the system to compensate for shit damage mechanics (e.g. d&d). While guards are totally unaware of your presence, attacks do auto-crits/auto-sneak attacks/x3 damage or whatever, as required.

Stealth as a skill is terrible because handled this way, the stakes are too high. It's too binary, investing in it is all-or-nothing. As a consequence, challenging the stealth-specialists makes a whole type of gameplay inaccessible to the rest of the party; and making it inclusive and manageable for non-specialists trivializes all the skill points the stealth-specialists invested.

Thief skills on old d&d were supposed to represent godly feats of sneaking, like 'moving silently' while you ghost directly behind a patrolling guard. Not mundane shit like quietly moving around some corridors.

WTF is a 'stealth clock' and is it as dumb as it sounds?

It runs on PbtA. So partial successes and failures can fill the "Alert" clock a bit more. When the Alert clock fills the guards are alerted.

But it gets better, the amount it fills is up to the GM. Also it isn't just failure or partial success on stealth checks that fill it, the GM can decide to fill it for partial success on any check. In the example in the book a partial success rolled by a party member trying to talk to a ghost half filled the clock (2 ticks out of 4), when in the description of what happened the ghost was unable to speak and so had to lead them with gestures. No explanation for what was alerting about it.

Christ the way Apocalypse stuff runs gives me ludo narrative dissonance

How would Dogs do stealth? First level is straight sneaking, escalation is a hint of a trail that a guard is actively tracking, next escalation is getting caught and trying to talk your way out, and final escalation being fight-or-flight?

It would be a physical challenge so both people roll Body+Heart, then it plays out the way any other conflict does in DitV, stakes are proposed and agreed upon, one person says how they're staying hidden, the other counters with how they try and find them (or vice versa depending on the exact nature of the conflict), traits and equipment are brought in as appropriate, someone could escalate to fighting or guns if they wanted and had the chance, otherwise you play until someone can't counter anymore then figure out fallout.